"The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare to state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two." Ken Wilber

It is both remarkable and wholly necessary that we are witnessing more and more humans celebrating these seasonal nodes such as the Solstices & Equinoxes for this is one of the primary ways we are re-weaving ourselves into the cycles of the Earth, re-indigenizing ourselves (especially for those who have been culturally cut off from their indigenous roots) AND offering a more spiritual and even celebratory context for the resolving of the environmental crisis. The ancients who were devoted to living in accord with natural principles and, even more, in devotion to the Planetary Goddess, saw something so integral in living in rapport with the eco-spiritualism of the Earth. To sever that connection spelled certain doom, mostly because our own sense of humanity derived immensely from such intimacy. To disconnect, as our precious Western civilization has done, means we as a species lose a significant guiding power. The ancient Gnostics, the Pagan seers of the indigenous Europans, perceived the Planetary Goddess as Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom. To divorce from Her meant to divorce from Wisdom. It is very clear with our misaligned technological advancements and murderous modernizations (murderous to the natural environment) we have lost a sense of wisdom on an immense and collective level.

Yet, every adversity is but an opportunity and here we are facing such a collective dilemma that a collective response is mandatory. And let us be clear: this is perhaps the severest adversity we have ever faced as a species. Moreover, time is running out for us to figure it out. There is a sense of urgency, even desperation, shaking the stolid tree of spiritualists, invoking a wilder peace that is needed; a warrior archetype upgrade that would ignite an aggressive caring of the world and of each other; a dominating goodness that will leap face first into battle, as an initiated Arjuna so coaxed by the gargantuan counsel of Krishna who stridently replied to his previously haplessness while he hesitated whether to battle or not. Krishna asserted with omnipresent zeal for Arjuna to FIGHT and give all the fruits of actions to the higher. It is interesting that in these times of great turning I have come back to the Gita many times as a paragon tale of taking action, especially for those spiritually inclined. We live in a time where our engagement is needed more than ever in the wiles of the world!

The universe is founded in consciousness and guided by it. The final reality is Universal Consciousness. The Supreme Consciousness is Omnipresent. Its evolutionary powers pervade the entire Universe. All processes of Nature are governed by the laws of this Absolute Force. Aitareya Upanishad

We must all declare war, but not a war of old. A kind of war that we have perhaps never witnessed: a war for interdependence. There's already a paradox at play there, which is right good--paradox is how truth sings its eternal ray into our heart, nimbly dancing 'round the buttresses of the rigid intellect. To fight for such means to struggle to illuminate the necessity for cooperation; for the truth of oneness not as some vague mystical musing but as the raw, primal way of the interconnected universe. To stand aside from such, to divide, to lose sight in selfishness, is illegal according to cosmic law and that illegality is what we are reckoning with in these intensifying times.

Universal is a powerful word, a healing one I will suggest. It evokes something all-powerful and all-loving. For me personally it also evokes something eternally found in the shining scriptures of every religion that, intoxicated with its own cultural egotisms, forgot that they were all saying the same damn thing: love each other, this cosmos is blessed, you are powerful not because of might but because of your ability to love; to unify; etc. after effulgent etc. The Universal is the clarion call of the Golden Age, when science and spirituality no longer fight against each other but affirm each other's brilliant knowings in the common ground of cosmically inclined intelligence. Both are ways to know the world and both are finding profound coherence at present. The mystic lauds the ethereal land of radiance upon which the feet of all creatures walks, while scientist awes at the super-strings weaving the lattice of an all encompassing architecture of which every star is woven together. Rumi's famous quote about the unity field where right and wrong disappear in each other echoes in Einstein's own assertion that 'the field is everything'. What does this all mean? It means warring parties are eyeing each other now with mutual admiration, perhaps even falling in love with each other if that gaze is held long enough for all the ego to drop and the lifting of hearts to melt in converging coherence. The universal is born by the inevitable embrace of science and mysticism, where fact is exonerated as something for head and heart to illuminate and exalt. And suddenly the truth can be proven AND sung, with neither holding higher decree.

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.Albert Einstein

It is wonderful and that wonder needs to become our prayer, full of the awe that becomes the deepest cleansing; the awe that Lao Tzu warned, if betrayed, would destroy us, for awe is an essence in this life of galactic beauty. The awe of beholding a night sky drenched with the shimmer of celestial bodies does something to the terribly benumbed senses of the urbanite who has been destroyed by the artifice of the city in more ways than they can understand. But before that awe, the senses drink deep of infinity and beauty's coupling and sparks sigh in the dusty caverns of the soul's spinning orifices, ringing the bells of an inner-temple complex long forgotten. In those moments of awe, we need not be convinced of beauty--we are captivated by it, and that alone wins the day. It is this captivation which must be propagated like mad in these darkened days where leftists and rightists are waging wordy wars for futile causes, forgetting the dome of dawn shattering their gloom in mutuality if they'd take a moment to allow the brilliant blue sky of a golden day to rise inside of them and light the candle of THE heart. We are fighting for the same thing in our deepest, if only we'd allow ourselves to sink to that essence...

The universal age is upon us and it is up to us all to hoist it high and let the world know that this is the only hope now, in the face of worldwide suicide. But more than fear-mongered epiphanies--this is naturally our proclivity, is it not? This is where it's all been heading since the galvanizing flower-powers of the 1960s, through all the cosmic convergences and yoga revolutions, to now this mainstreaming spiritual interest taking the majority of us now to a commons beyond race, nationality, creed and all other diversity? And we must get going like a uni-verse, a united verse of humanity and of ALL life itself, figuring out what truly unites us, what weaves us, what is humanity, what is cosmic identity, Earthly nationality? This is our most shining moment, in the face of doomsday. Let us all become such universalists, walking universal truthers, walking universal unifiers. And perhaps one day soon or generations down we might see instead of separating countries great universe-cities where all humanity lives and thrives together, amplified by cosmic laws that inherently wish for us to be glorious and gloriously connected to divine intelligence. Glory all the way!

So let this rebirthing Light of a Winter Solstice make of your heart a womb and tomb for the old radiance to die and tousle into transformation, soaring into higher harmonic as a universal prayer. We are all the womb for the universal; for a new world, anointed by collective struggle into collective freedom of cosmic consciousness. Shine like the sun of suns and dance with the holy colours of humanity in the source-songs of our ecstatic frequencies, ecstatic to make a new world where all are free to revel in the true joy of cosmic seed!